Second Wind: Axenix Upgrades AI Lab at Tver Polytechnic
The company has upgraded the AI lab at Tver State Technical University and brought its engineers into the classroom.
For the past two years, an artificial intelligence lab has operated at Tver State Technical University (TvSTU). The university launched it together with technology company Axenix. Since then, students have developed a range of applied solutions, from tools for image annotation and price-tag recognition to systems that detect parking violations and analyze engineering diagrams.
New Hardware, New Possibilities
In 2026, the lab received a major technology upgrade. Axenix expanded its server capacity by adding a graphics processing unit and increasing both RAM and storage. The company also provided students with 14 additional laptops, allowing them to work independently.
The new computing resources give students access to more complex and demanding tasks, allow them to fine-tune models on specialized datasets and use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) approaches. With RAG, an AI system first searches external databases for the information it needs and then generates an answer based on that information. These tasks require both high performance and stable operation.
A Technology Test
The Axenix–TvSTU project is far from the only example of businesses and universities joining forces. In 2021 and 2022, Russia launched a unified digital platform with educational materials called Tsifrovoy obrazovatelnyy kontent (Digital Educational Content). It brought together online courses for school students, college and university students, and teachers from Uchi.ru, Foxford, Mobile Electronic Education, 1C:Urok, Novy Disk and other providers of digital educational content. More than 1.5 million students and about 220,000 educators gained access to the platform.
Another notable example is Yandex Obrazovaniye (Yandex Education). In 2024, the company launched joint educational programs for software development students at 19 Russian universities. In 2025, it announced plans to expand the number of participating universities to 100 and reach up to 15,000 students. That same year, Yandex, Sber and leading universities, including ITMO University, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, HSE University (Moscow) and Innopolis University, launched the AI360 bachelor's program to train artificial intelligence professionals. Also in 2024, students at HSE University (Moscow) began using the YandexGPT generative model to write term papers and graduation theses.
In 2026, Alice AI introduced an AI tutor mode for students in grades 5 through 11. Taken together, these examples show how technology is becoming part of the learning process while companies are helping prepare future professionals long before they graduate.
120 Hours of Practical Learning
Starting with the fall semester last year, experts from Axenix's Tver office began teaching third-year bachelor's students in the Department of Software Engineering. They teach two courses: “Design of Intelligent Information Systems” and “Systems Analysis in Requirements Development and Analysis.” The courses include more than 120 academic hours of lectures, lab work and final assessments. What do the students actually do? They work through practical examples and learn about current directions in AI development. Recently, Axenix experts also gave a lecture for first-year students, covering AI trends, vibe coding and AI assistants. About 40 students took part and expanded their knowledge.
Today's Lab, Tomorrow's Center of Expertise
The partnership between Axenix and TvSTU is an example of mutually beneficial cooperation: the company helps bring practical content into academic programs, while the university provides a setting for developing applied solutions. Everyone benefits, but students in particular gain hands-on experience with some of the most advanced technologies while they are still studying.
“This is exactly the kind of approach that is now in demand in engineering education, where knowledge is immediately reinforced by practical experience,” says Alexander Kalabin, head of the Department of Software Engineering at TvSTU. Over time, laboratories like this could grow into centers of expertise. They could become places where new applied technologies are developed for industries such as manufacturing, logistics and health care, among others.
Not every global technology trend is equally important to Russia. But expanding the talent pipeline in artificial intelligence is among the country's most pressing priorities. And one part of that effort is taking place in Tver.
